Delicious LiveJournal Links for 2-1-2010

[andrewducker]

• Helping End Sexual Harassment at Conventions
  (tags: sexism women conventions)
• Terry Pratchett ready to be test case for suicide law
  (tags: law suicide uk pratchett)
• Photos from urban exploration under Edinburgh's Royal Mile
  (tags: urbanexploration Edinburgh photos)
• Why Macmillan and Amazon are as bad as each other
  (tags: amazon macmillan books business)

Comments

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

Re the conventions: Geek Social Fallacies rear their head again! There was an LJ thread a couple of years back full of horror stories like this.

[broin.livejournal.com]

Yep. I'd love to know what 'explicit permission' looked like.

[meihua.livejournal.com]

On that sexual harassment one:

> Defining the Behaviors: To help define these behaviors,
> we need input, and that comes from all of you.

No, nobody needs more input. Sexual harassment is already perfectly understood in a feminist context and the wheel doesn't need reinvention for fan conventions.

The "input" they are asking for will consist of massive amounts of derailing by ill-informed men (and a much smaller number of women, and perhaps even people of other genders).

The project should instead be about direct lobbying of conference organisers to put explicit anti-harrassment guidelines in place immediately. There are plenty of good guidelines out there already - perhaps getting in touch with some feminist conference organisers would be the best first step.

Those guidelines should be imposed in an absolutely dictatorial way, and many people will be angry and put off. Good. We could do with less sexists in fandom.

Well said

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

Really all they need is a big sign saying, "Normal rules of social behaviour still apply."

I'm not sure it is sexism, though, so much as ignorance.

Re: Well said

[meihua.livejournal.com]

Given that normal rules of social behaviour include groping on public transport and that people can even get raped without bystanders even intervening (there have been a couple of cases of this recently), I think we need better-than-normal rules.

I'm not interested in debating whether or not the behaviour is sexist - let's talk about that once the molestation is split equally along gender lines between molestors and the people they molest.

Re: Well said

[andrewducker]

Given that normal rules of social behaviour include groping on public transport
Which they don't. Some people successfully break the rules, because people are crap at enforcing them, but that doesn't mean the rules actively include groping as normal.

I do wish that people _would_ enforce the rules more, but I know that a lot of people are scared of making a fuss, not helped by media portrayal of people who attempt to deal with unpleasantness as inevitably ending up being stabbed.

Re: Well said

[meihua.livejournal.com]

First, I hope you agree that "normal rules of social behaviour" is not the same as "the law". Given that, I never read the book which contains the "normal rules". I just look at the behaviour society endorses through (lack of) action. Given the ubiquity of the experience of being groped, it's fair to say that this is part of the normal social experience and fits within the "rules".

Re: Well said

[andrewducker]

What percentage of people that you encounter grope you? 75%? 50%? 25%? 5%? 1%? Less than that?

Because if a behaviour isn't being shown by more than 25% of the people you're bumping into then it doesn't sound like normal behaviour to me.

Re: Well said

[meihua.livejournal.com]

Don't talk to me. Talk to women who've been groped - especially in the United States. And why are you focusing on the men? "Normal" experience is to be groped. Of course that means that less than 100% of the men are groping. So what? What matters here is that only in a very low % of the cases are people intervening - just as is the experience at cons.

Re: Well said

[andrewducker]

You were the one who said "normal rules of social behaviour include groping on public transport", not "the normal experience of travelling on public transport involves being groped". These are two very different things, and I was pointing out that your statement was categorically wrong.

And I agree that more people should intervene! I said that myself four comment upstream.

Re: Well said

[meihua.livejournal.com]

> I was pointing out that your statement was categorically wrong

Why? Do you really think I believe that 25%, 50%, 75% of men grope on public transport?

Because I spent the time responding to those comments under the assumption that you didn't get it, not that you were just interested in pointing out that I said a thing in an imprecise way.

If you basically get it, don't waste the time of activists with this kind of thing. I spend enough time debating with utter bigots that I have only so much energy to expend on this.

Re: Well said

[xquiq.livejournal.com]

I think it's worthwhile making a distinction between what's acceptable by consensus & what's being given tacit approval by inaction.

Peronsally, I would view normal rules of social behaviour as the former, although I can see that set of norms is being slowly eroded on some fronts by an unwillingness to confront behaviours that most people would deem unacceptable.

I do however think that it's vital to draw attention to the gap between that which is deemed acceptable & that which is accepted by by default / inaction.

That said, it's hard to get people to intervene if the reason that they are avoiding doing so is fear. I'm not sure how we as a society get past that.

Re: Well said

[meihua.livejournal.com]

> I think it's worthwhile making a distinction
> between what's acceptable by consensus & what's
> being given tacit approval by inaction.

I don't - I think that this, in fact, is what consensus is. In consensus decision-making, a consensus is usually formed when some are in support, and others are broadly ok, and some who have doubts agree to stand aside and not block consensus.

> that set of norms is being slowly eroded on some
> fronts by an unwillingness to confront behaviours

This seems like you're saying that, at one time, women were not subject to sexual harassment, and that this is slowly being eroded. I don't think this time existed. I think it's always been this bad or worse. If anything, it is slowly getting better, but only by tiny, tiny degrees.

> That said, it's hard to get people to intervene if
> the reason that they are avoiding doing so is fear.

I think it's more complicated than that. I think it's a lack of awareness of the problem, a culture of trivialising harassment, general sexism and some fear, as well as other factors. It's well covered on other feminist blogs.

Re: Well said

[xquiq.livejournal.com]

This seems like you're saying that, at one time, women were not subject to sexual harassment, and that this is slowly being eroded. I don't think this time existed. I think it's always been this bad or worse. If anything, it is slowly getting better, but only by tiny, tiny degrees.

Yes, looking at this I worded it rather badly, as I was thinking about behaviour in a certain subset of public situation, rather than in a more general context. I agree that in general things are getting better.

Where I think there have been some steps backwards, are in the type of behaviour that is given tacit approval in public. It seems to me that certain types of obnoxious public behaviour is less likely to be challenged than in the past.

Well, can we back track?

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

Thing is - though there are plenty of predators - I don't think pyjama-groper guy was being strictly predatory. Rather what he did was inappropriate and intrusive.

He was probably labouring under the - yes, OK - sexist assumption that girls "who dress like that" *want and invite* intimate gestures from strangers.

So, though I might well have punched him and not felt bad about it, I think the problem is in part due to socially maladjusted males mistaking the atmosphere of a con for some sort of swingers party.

For that reason, just telling people: "Sexual harrassment: No, actually the same rules apply as for Real Life, no matter how people dress and act" might actually help alleviate the problem.

The real predators - the bastards that create the groped public transport *experience* you cite - will still be predators piggybacking off the Geek Social Fallacies.

Re: Well, can we back track?

[meihua.livejournal.com]

You can't separate it out into Real Predators (complete with plastic macs and a sketchy moustache) and Otherwise Nice But A Bit Clueless Guys.

Instead, look at the social attitudes which say "women are for touching". The NBABCGs have a bit of that, gropers have a bit more, more serious sexual offenders have even more.

Sexism is a scale, harassment at cons exists on that scale.

Re: Well, can we back track?

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

Yes, I suppose, looked at that way most harassment is sexist in motivation, and exists on a sliding scale of sexism.

However, that means that it's cultural, and sometimes culture can be changed by simply educating people.

In other circumstances, pyjama tickle guy might get a girl drunk and rape her, since he probably thinks thats why con-going girls get drunk. So I don't think he's otherwise nice.

The Real Predators, on the other hand, are different. There was a thread this time last year, I think, where there were some pretty awful con stories that amounted to attempted stranger rape. People like that are toxic abusers and predators. They break rules knowlingly. They probably also steal stuff, rip off friends, and engage in all sorts of petty bullying. (For some reason, geek social circles seem very bad at identifying and ostracising people like that.)

So, I still think there's a definite distinction between men with sexist ideas about women at cons, and real predators. The former can be educated, the latter must be watched for.

Re: Well, can we back track?

[meihua.livejournal.com]

I still don't see the dividing line. Sure, people are at different postions on the "internalised rape culture" scale, and different strategies are needed to keep those people away from the con. And sometimes education is best and sometimes someone needs chucking out the door.

But I think that the "real predator" category is very unhelpful because it tells everyone else, "You're *not* a real predator", or indeed, "The behaviour you experienced wasn't *real* predation", and at the end of that line is Whoopi Goldberg's lovely "it was't rape-rape" line.

Why not just say that lots of sexual harassment happens, and that it's all shit, and that some of it is worse than others but it all remains unacceptable, and that a multitude of strategies are being used to handle it.

Re: Well, can we back track?

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

Well, logically they are different. One set belongs to a culture that says predation is not predation. The other set include sociopaths and criminal types, and they know what they are doing.

Is it helpful? I'm not sure. It certainly sets a lower limit to safety at any event.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Gotta say, if that had been my fiancee, the situation would have been resolved by me hitting the groper very hard.

I'm rather astonished it wasn't. And indeed I'm very surprised that there even needs to be a code of conduct for cons which says "don't do stuff which is BLATANTLY AGAINST THE LAW!"

[garunya.livejournal.com]

Pretty much my own thought!

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

Long, long ago, in a land far away I have (twice)punched blokes immediately in response to them touching a friend uninvitedly - though for some reason no-one has ever even tried such things on me. The one guy that ever grabbed me was non-sexual and in resonse to me trying to get his tie. I hit him too, and he let go. Not all that civilised, but seemingly effective.

I have also left a friend to a possibly unpleasant fate - in that case the odds were far too high, and I was less sure what she wanted (or didn't). Still do not know what I should have (could have) done.

All long ago...

[xquiq.livejournal.com]

Got to say, if it had been me, my partner wouldn't have need to hit the bugger because I would most likely have already done so myself...

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

I approve of this message.

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the article about Macmillan and Amazon, very enlightening. It kinds serves to reinforce myself that people will spout any bullshit in order to get your cash.